Nature’s Pride – A Wholesome Bread for An American Tradition

First of all, I wanted to take the time to thank everyone that had nominated me for the first annual foodbuzz blog awards.  I was taken a back when I saw that I was nominated under 4 categories.  Best Recipe Blog, Best Green/Sustainable Blog, Best Family Blog, and What blogger would you most like to see have their own show on the Food Network.  For being such a newbie, I’m really honored and excited just to have been nominated.  The blogs that I’m nominated with are all amazing in their own right and I wish all of them the best!  Now go out and vote 🙂

Before the nominations had come out, I kept hearing about the Foodbuzz blogger festival taking place in San Francisco this coming November.  It seemed like it would be a fun experience to be able to meet foodies that you normally chat with on the blogosphere.  I was so excited when I heard that the festival picked up Nature’s Pride as a sponsor and that they would be sending 6 bloggers to represent Nature’s Pride as an ambassador at the festival.  To me, it was a great opportunity.  Not just as a way to go to the festival, but that Nature’s Pride is a product that I can support and endorse.

Anyone that has been following my blog knows that I try to do my best to feed my family wholesome and nourishing foods without any of the preservatives or chemicals that are in so many processed packaged foods.  Nature’s Pride makes a great line of bread without the use of trans fat, artificial flavors, colors, preservatives or high fructose corn syrup.  Sounds like my kind of bread!

Check out the ingredients in their 100% whole wheat bread:

Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Cracked Wheat, Cultured Wheat Four, Contains 2% or less of: honey, salt, brown sugar, sobean oil, molasses, wheat bran, raisin juice concentrate, vinegar, soy flour, whey, soy lecithin, cultured corn solids, contains wheat, milk and soybeans.

I could read and understand all of those ingredients!  I’m still going to be making most of my bread at home, however, as a part time working mama, I’ll definitely be buying Nature’s Pride as my go to bread!

In order to apply as a Nature’s Pride ambassador they were asking for a recipe using their bread.  At first I was thinking something Spanish, hmmm… torrijas, yummm!  The more and more that I thought about what I wanted to make, I realized that sliced bread is to America what paella is to Spain or pasta is to Italy.  It’s an American staple!

The origins of sliced bread can be traced back to 1928 when the Chillicothe Baking Company sold sliced bread to the public. It was the first place anywhere in the world that sold sliced bread.  An interesting bit of history for me was when I found out that the greatest inventor of sliced bread came from IOWA!!  Starting in 1912, Inventor Otto Rohwedder began working on a machine that would be able to slice bread in order to sell it in sliced form to the public. Building a machine to slice the bread was not the problem but in finding a way to keep the bread fresh. A solution came in 1928 with the assistance of Marion Francis Bench of the Chillicothe Baking Company. Together the two found a solution to the wrapping problem and were able to start producing pre-sliced bread to sell to the public.

For my entry as a Nature’s Pride Ambassador, I decided to take the entire day and for each meal use Nature’s Pride Bread.  With the help of my son Nehemiah, we pridefully made American dishes!

Breakfast: My son Nehemiah making his own French Toast
Yes, it may say French, but anyone knows, this morning breakfast is as American as it gets!

And… here is a short video of Nehe making french toast

Lunch: My son Nehemiah making his own Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
An American favorite!

• 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 4 tbls butter
• 5 ounces dried beef, cut into 1-inch-square pieces
• 1 quart raw or whole milk

Method:

1. In a small bowl, place the flour, salt, and white pepper; stir to combine; set aside
2. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.  Do not allow the butter to brown.
3. Place the dried beef in the skillet; stir until the dried beef is coated with butter.
4. Remove the skillet from the heat.
5. Sprinkle the flour mixture ove the dried beef; stir until the dried beef is coated with the flour mixture and no lumps remain.
6. Add the milk and return the skillet to the heat.
7. Cook the dried beef mixture until the gravy thickens and is just under boiling, stirring constantly. Do not allow the mixture to boil.

The dried beef gravy is then poured over homemade mashed potatoes and toast.  So simple and comforting!

I hope you enjoyed our day in America 🙂  Buen Provecho!

For my eat on $30 challenge, the dried beef was given to us by my hubby’s father so I’m still within my budget 🙂